Sunday 28th November
Report by Julie Lucas, and see also the photos, taken by Amanda’s husband.
For the second successive year the Wilmslow ladies turned out for this 5.25 mile all women’s race in sunny, but very cold Salford. The race had grown from 170 finishers in 2003 to 254 in 2004.
At the start we were all together for the first five, no make that two strides then things settled down to the normal pattern. Jane and Kate Ayres disappeared after the first corner, Linda after the second, Amanda after the third and Kate Sutton was doing her very best to leave me behind as well. Being a slow starter I was desperately trying to keep Kate in my sights and I managed to catch her after half a mile. I hung on to her tail for the next couple of miles and was just settling into my stride when we hit a steady climb. My marathon training and Kate’s recent heavy cold, found me (much to my surprise) pulling away from her up the hill, and with Kate’s encouragement ringing in my ears I set off in pursuit of Amanda. It took me two miles to catch her, when I did I am sure she was singing along to her walkman she had brought along to distract her from the pain. I slowly passed Amanda and pushed on for the final mile. As you pass the five mile marker you know you are nearly home, but the hill that didn’t look too bad in the warm up, felt much steeper at the end of the race with three people breathing down your neck as you are trying to stop them from passing you. Amanda and Kate soon joined me at the finish and we met up with the others. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed it and between us we had a very good day. Jane Clarke knocked two minutes off last years time and came in 2nd L35, Kate Ayres knocked off 20 seconds and came 1st L45, Linda came 3rd L40, I knocked off four and a half minutes and Amanda knocked off a minute. The results showed the team as coming third, but they had shown Linda as running for Winston (even though we told them they had made a mistake), so when you add her in we actually came joint second.
Many thanks to our supporters on the day Tony and John Bradbury.
12 Jane Clarke 34.06 2nd L35
15 Kate Ayres 35.11 1st L45
36 Linda Ely 37.46 3rd L40
56 Julie Lucas 40.23 8th L40
58 Amanda Bradbury 40.43
62 Kate Sutton 40.52 11th L40
On a final note, I was very surprised and absolutely delighted to be named as Runner of the Month. I would just like to thank everyone at the club for all the encouragement and words of advice I have received all year, it really did make a difference.
Julie Lucas